Regarding the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), many have asked, “What was the big deal?” I would like to emphasize one issue briefly mentioned by Dr. Emanuel in his perspective on the lessons of SARS (1), namely the stress on hospital facilities and health care workers. Managing SARS was an incredibly labor-intensive effort, making tremendous demands on everyone involved. Properly donning the personal protective equipment took 10 to 20 minutes, and the reverse process was equally time-consuming. In one isolation hospital dedicated to SARS, personnel were on the ward from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., always dressed in 1 or 2 layers of protective equipment, adding another layer to enter individual patient rooms. The staff were not allowed to eat or drink the entire 9 hours they were on the ward. In our institution, the patients potentially most in need of immediate care, especially those with impending respiratory failure or those who were already on ventilators, were also the ones who posed a significant danger to staff because of increased secretions and possible aerosolization of the virus.